Читать книгу Lord Crayle's Secret World - Lara Temple, Lara Temple - Страница 9

Chapter Three

Lord Crayle had just sifted through his morning mail when his butler knocked gently at the library door.

‘Two...ah, individuals to see you, my lord,’ he announced calmly, staring at a point beyond Michael’s left shoulder, a clear indication that these visitors were slightly out of the ordinary, but that he was well accustomed to his lordship’s sometimes peculiar choice of guests.

Michael nodded absently.

‘Show them in, Pottle.’

At first Michael just stared at the couple that walked in, perplexed. If not for their relative sizes he might not have made the connection with his Hampstead Heath assailants. Michael was above average in height and breadth, but the man who stood crumpling his cloth hat nervously easily outstripped him.

Despite the giant’s size, it was the woman who captured his attention. At the moment she looked like a slightly dishevelled schoolmistress. Her pelisse was ridiculously outmoded and, contrary to convention, she had removed her simple straw bonnet and held it dangling by its ribbons. She might at one point have been wearing her hair in a bun, but the golden-brown hair appeared to have rebelled and unwound, and was now held back tenuously with a ribbon. It looked surprisingly lush against the drab grey pelisse and it framed an unusual, heart-shaped face with a determined chin. But her eyes were her most arresting feature. They were gently slanted beneath arched brows and a strange mixture of blue and green. Right now they were narrowed as she seemed to be caught between apprehension and nervous amusement.

Michael realised his guests were becoming increasingly uneasy at his silence and he waved them to the two chairs that faced his desk.

‘Please sit down. I trust your arm has healed?’ He turned to the woman, one brow cocked.

Something flashed in her eyes, but she smiled politely and took the seat he indicated.

‘Perfectly. I thank you for your concern.’

He ignored the slight sarcasm in her tones and focused on the voice. His memory had not deceived him. It was deep and cultured. Without the asperity it could be seductive. It was hard to reconcile her obviously high-bred tones and perfect posture with the highway robber who had placed a bullet a whisper away from his temple. But it was most definitely she and she was turning out to be better than he had expected.

‘Good. I am glad you decided to accept my offer. I admit I was not certain you would.’

‘We have accepted nothing yet, my lord. You were rather sketchy about the details...’

He almost smiled at her haughty tones.

‘I can see this may be as arduous as it was back on the Heath. I apologise if I am being difficult,’ he said with mild amusement.

To his surprise, instead of raising her hackles further, she appeared to relax.

‘Surely, my lord, you can appreciate this is a rather...uncomfortable situation for us? Perhaps if you told us what you want, we could all proceed more quickly?’

Very good, he approved silently. Perfection, down to the faintly coaxing smile that tilted up one corner of a rather pleasing mouth. Not a bad little actress at all.

‘Very well. My offer is simple.’ He continued, ‘I am part of a government agency and we need a woman in the ranks. I think, given your skills, you might be suitable.’

‘What precisely would I be required to do?’

‘You would take part in certain official operations aimed at protecting crown and country. We will obviously train you and develop the necessary skills, but most importantly, you would be expected to follow whatever directives your superiors give you. If you accept, I will provide more details. Until then I am afraid you will have to take my offer at least partly unseen, as I am accepting you rather on the same terms. Which reminds me, I would like to know your names. Your real names.’

He saw the hesitation in her eyes.

‘My word on it that I have no intention of handing you over to the authorities.’

He met her probing gaze evenly, watching as doubt changed to resolution in the peculiar green-blue depths. But as she still hesitated, the giant leaned forward and spoke for the first time since they had entered.

‘My name is George Durney, my lord, and this is Miss Sarah Serena Trevor, but we have only ever called her Miss Sari.’

Michael smiled at the annoyed look the young woman shot her companion. Obviously she would go by nothing as commonplace as merely Sarah and Serena was as inappropriate a name as he could imagine for such a mercurial creature.

‘What if I agree, but you then decide I’m not suitable for this...agency?’ she asked abruptly.

‘If we decide at any time during your initial training period that you are not suitable, we will give you three months’ salary and part ways.’

‘And the pay?’

‘As I mentioned before, twenty pounds a month to start, including whatever costs you incur as part of the job. You should find accommodation close to the Institute...’

He paused, wondering if they might be lovers. He didn’t know why that possibility had not occurred to him before. The man was older, but probably no more than forty. It was possible.

‘Is it just the two of you?’ he asked brusquely.

‘Also my wife, sir, and miss’s younger brother, but he’s away at school,’ George stated.

Michael ignored his faint relief at the giant’s response. He noted the woman’s change in expression, her shoulders pulling downwards, as if the weight of responsibility was physical. Her lips parted slightly, but she said nothing and he noticed for the first time the soft fullness of her lower lip. He shifted slightly in his seat, annoyed by the sudden tension in his body. He was assessing her as agent material, not as a potential mistress.

‘Very well, the pay should be enough for all of you. If...’ he deferred to her with a faintly sardonic bow ‘...you decide to accept our offer.’

* * *

Sari forced herself to straighten in her chair, inspecting the man facing her. In the dark, with her nerves singing with fear and pain, he had appeared to be a giant and a devil. His size was still formidable, but in daylight his threat was more refined.

Firstly, he was too handsome...no, perhaps handsome was not the right word. In the dark the shadows had painted his face in harsh angular lines. The full light of morning streaming through the windows only softened those lines a small degree. His eyes were deep-set and glinted with a strange grey she found hard to identify. His mouth was tightly held, the tension apparent in the grooves that bracketed it. He had a perfectly sculpted nose and cheekbones, the only features that she could actively label handsome. The rest of him was far too forbidding, too challenging.

His black hair was cut short and simply, unlike the artfully curled fashions that were now common, and his clothes were equally subdued and tasteful. There was no ostentation about him or about the room in which they were seated. It was blatantly his space. The walls were lined with books, but there was none of the haphazard air that had characterised her father’s studies. Apparently he controlled his environment with as much rigidity as he held himself. A sudden twinge of pain throbbed in her arm. Seeing him in the light of day made her all the more aware that he could have killed her that night.

‘Had I not been a woman, would you have taken that second shot?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Yes,’ he replied, his mocking air disappearing instantly, his eyes unequivocally telling her the same. Their colour was not as dark as she had thought. A rim of slate grey held in a paler ice. The combination was disconcerting, almost feral.

Sari shifted back slightly in her chair, removing herself from the intensity of his gaze. She rather thought it was not the smartest thing to do, putting her fate in his hands. He would use her thoroughly for his own purposes with little thought to the consequences. He was a man with an agenda and she was merely a small means to his ends.

Still, what option did she have?

‘Very well.’

He lifted one eyebrow at her laconic response. Then he half-smiled and pulled a sheet of paper from his desk.

‘Good. I will give you an address. Arrive on Monday morning and ask for a Mr Anderson. He is responsible for the new recruits. Meanwhile, here is a draft on my bank for twenty pounds.’

It was Sari’s turn to raise an eyebrow—she was surprised he trusted them not to simply disappear with his money. Then she saw the faintly disdainful look in his eyes, as if he knew precisely what she was thinking. Her sense of helplessness and fear shifted into a surge of anger at this cold, unyielding man who dangled salvation with little concern whether she took it or took herself to perdition.

A perverse, rebellious demon took hold of her and she stood up and strode briskly to the desk. Even as she saw his disdain turn to wariness, she extended her hand, the abruptness of her gesture making a mockery of its polite antecedents.

‘A pleasure doing business with you, my lord,’ she said.

Michael stood up, unhurriedly, inch by towering inch, making her hand look very small indeed. Just as she thought she would have to withdraw it, he reached out and grasped it in his. A rush of heat rose up her arm and she was peculiarly aware of the texture of the large hand that held hers; it was firm and warm and calloused and it seemed to engulf more than her hand. She was swamped by the same mixture of fear and anticipation that had rushed through her on the Heath. She tried pulling away, but he did not immediately let go. Finally, he released her hand slowly, and she felt each finger as it grazed her palm.

Despite the fact that she stood closer to him now than she had ever been, his voice sounded distant.

‘As you said: a pleasure.’

Sari breathed in deeply, picked up the address and draft and strode out without another word, followed by George.

* * *

Michael remained standing after the door closed behind them. He flexed his right hand. That had been a mistake. He had merely been responding to her aggravating bravado, but the moment he had grasped her hand every nerve-end had gone on alert. He had felt for a moment just as he had before a battle, every sense and instinct ready, focused on danger and survival. It was a ridiculous response to a mere handclasp.

He had a premonition that perhaps this was not his best idea. She was too independent for their purposes. They needed someone who could follow orders. Then he remembered her stone-cold focus as she had aimed the pistol at his head, even as blood dripped down her arm. He had to face the fact that she was as good as they were going to find. The fact that she brought out the worst in him and that she clearly disliked him was beside the point. After all it was Anderson who was primarily responsible for new recruits, not he. Hopefully, by the time she went through her training she would have learned some discipline. He turned back to his correspondence. He would keep an eye on this experiment. Just enough to make sure she didn’t turn the whole Institute on its head.